Constant Crashing

[Guest]

I friend of mine asked me to look at her machine which crashes on start up,
sometimes up to 20 times before it finally starts up and becomes stable. All
sorts of things have been tried without success and eventually i took the
machine away and reformatted and reinstalled windows. The machine now starts
up without crashing (AT MY HOUSE) The moment i took it back to her house it
started crashing again as before. back at my house I started it up without
fail over 100 times over a period of a few days but guess what? back at her
house it crashes again. I have changed the power lead and extension plugs
without luck. Is it possible that an external device such as monitor,
keyboard, printer could cause the machine to crash? Is it also possible that
an unsteady electrical supply at her house could cause the problem. Any
ideas, help would be wonderful!

 

[Malke]

I friend of mine asked me to look at her machine which crashes on
start up, sometimes up to 20 times before it finally starts up and
becomes stable. All sorts of things have been tried without success
and eventually i took the machine away and reformatted and reinstalled
windows. The machine now starts up without crashing (AT MY HOUSE) The
moment i took it back to her house it started crashing again as
before. back at my house I started it up without fail over 100 times
over a period of a few days but guess what? back at her house it
crashes again. I have changed the power lead and extension plugs
without luck. Is it possible that an external device such as monitor,
keyboard, printer could cause the machine to crash? Is it also
possible that an unsteady electrical supply at her house could cause
the problem. Any ideas, help would be wonderful!

Of course it is possible that your friend's peripherals are causing a
problem. You've deduced that there is something different at her house
than at your house, so now you need to find out what that is. You can
eliminate the electrical issue by getting her an Uninterruptible Power
Supply (UPS). Don't buy the absolute cheapest, but don't overbuy for
one computer. An APC for around $60USD is perfect.

So to troubleshoot, you need to be at her house. Start by plugging the
machine into the UPS with no additional peripherals attached. Use one
of your mice and keyboards, not hers. How does the machine behave? If
it is fine, then add her peripherals - one at a time, testing after
each change.

Does she have a lot of peripherals attached via USB? If so, try giving
her a bigger power supply and/or a powered USB hub.

The key is to do everything methodically, one thing at a time, testing
after each change, and taking notes.

Malke

 

[Richard Urban]

You must be at your friends house, using her peripherals to trouble shoot
this problem. I have had a few just like this.

You may want to "start out" by having her connect the computer up so you can
see if she is doing anything that is obviously incorrect.

If everything looks OK, and the computer still crashes, remove everything.
Then connect only the most necessary devices connected (monitor - keyboard -
mouse) and test. Then plug in the other items, one at a time.

This may be extremely time consuming, as she may have a heat related problem
with one of her devices.


--
Regards,

Richard Urban
Microsoft MVP Windows Shell/User
(For email, remove the obvious from my address)

Quote from George Ankner:
If you knew as much as you think you know,
You would realize that you don't know what you thought you knew!